November 12, 2003
Diebold Latest: The Effects of Student Spread Memos on CA Secretary of State

The Daily Cal has a piece on Joe Hall and Notice and Takedown request (Sect 512 under the DMCA) on the Diebold memos he posted: Posting of Leaks Lands Student in Hot Water. Joe responds here:

    It's too bad that Andrea couldn't get some quotes from the other Berkeley students participating in this action as I'm sure they have valuable things to say: Parker Thompson, Ping Yee and Sean Savage. This action achieved it's goals of getting the documents out there and in to the hands of investigators solely because so many students weighed the issues (copyright v. freedom of speech, privacy, etc.) and were willing to take the risks involved with posting the documents.

Kim Zetter/Wired with E-Vote Firm's Bill Comes Due says that the CA Secretary of State's office is forcing Diebold to pay for an audit, because they installed uncertified software code into CA voting machines, in order to win certification for a new model. According to Zetter, this is due to student actions to get this information out, and the CA SoS offices reading some of these memos and taking action:

    Release notes for the 1.18.17 version that were posted on the Web recently with other internal Diebold correspondence, indicate that several critical fixes were made to the software in addition to installing several new features.

If this is true, students at Swarthmore, followed by students at many other institutions including those above at Berkeley, in spreading the Diebold memos around, have accomplished the goal of causing those with review power over Diebold systems to take another look at Diebold's work. Let's hope the review really scrutinizes this company's activities and that EFF and OPG's suit against Diebold brings about the conclusion that using the DMCA to suppress speech necessary to the functioning of the democracy is wrong. Even if the review doesn't cause the state to discontinue using Diebold systems or require severe changes (and I'm sure the pressure is enormous TO certify), the fact is the memos raise disturbing issues and the review is very necessary. If companies providing services of this sort feel that they can quash documents out on the Internet by using the DMCA, if Diebold succeeds on this point, we and our democracy will be the poorer for it.

Also note that Verified Voting.org has a petition in support of a bill introduced by Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey requiring a voter-verifiable paper trail. Consider looking over the bill and signing the petition. Also Parker Thompson notes that Greg Palast of the BBC spoke at Berkeley and in the Q&A, received over 200 note card questions, where 25% asked about black box voting issues.

Posted by Mary Hodder at November 12, 2003 07:42 AM
Comments

Hi Mary, you are the blogginist badd-ass...

Here's some more stuff for you... Here's my takedown notice done up all Chilling Effects style:

http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/notice.cgi?NoticeID=930

And here's the specific email correspondence that has gotten Diebold in trouble with the CA SoS:

http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~ping/diebold/lists/support.w3archive/200210/msg00101.html

Why is that specific email so important? Well, GEMS version 1.18 wasn't certified by the State of California until July of 2003... the date on that memo is Oct 2002. Not only that, but it seems to show that it is pretty damn easy to get into the database of a Diebold machine (called "AVTS" for AccuVote model TS) with a laptop. Then it's just a matter of changing the database inside the machine to change the votes... then, you can follow the instructions here to make it legit so that it doesn't show up in an audit (due to lack of a voter-verified paper trail):

http://sims.berkeley.edu/~ping/diebold/lists/support.w3archive/200210/msg00121.html

Pretty friggin' scary stuff. To think that they're about to certify the TSx model which will allow wireless communication between voting HQ and voting machines... the future is dark

Posted by: joe on November 12, 2003 02:20 PM

I forgot to mention that Kim Zetter also reported the following... which is damn significant:

[...]

Diebold must also cooperate fully with the independent auditors and with the secretary of state's office during its investigation of the certification violation, and attend a voting system panel meeting in mid-December, when the state will review the results of the audit and determine what, if any, sanctions may be appropriate.

[...]

Kyle said the state would inventory the systems of other vendors and other counties once the Diebold investigation was complete. The state will also begin requiring all counties to maintain and submit logs of the hardware, firmware and software versions they use.

Starting in 2004, the state will also conduct random audits of voting systems to ensure that all software and hardware is certified. And in the future, the state will require CEOs of vendors to affirm under penalty of perjury that the company will not change systems without obtaining written approval from the secretary of state. Failure to do so may result in de-certification and possible criminal charges, Kyle said.

[...]

It's widely believed by voting machine makers that Secretary of State Shelley, who has previously stated his preference for electronic voting machines to offer a voter-verifiable receipt with their machines, may announce plans within a week or so to require this on voting machines used in the state.

[...]

Posted by: joe on November 12, 2003 02:25 PM
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